InSites is a quarterly newsletter that highlights the personalities and projects of the Waste Management Research and Education Institute (WMREI) of The University of Tennessee. WMREI is an affiliate of the EERC.
WMREI was created in 1985 as a state-funded Center of Excellence. Research areas include solid-, hazardous-, and nuclear-waste management; waste minimization; and pollution prevention.
Biotechnology is the focal point of the institute's technical research, while issues
involving public attitudes and federal/state policies related to waste-management issues
are the primary concerns of the institute's policy research.
For additional information about InSites, or to be added to our mailing list, please write InSites, WMREI, The University of Tennessee, 311 Conference Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, call 865-974-1156, or fax 865-974-1838. Or, if you prefer, e-mail Constance Griffith
cbgriffith@utk.edu.
Appetitie for Destruction, by Grooming Tomorrow's Environmental Pros, by The Polarizing Effects of Electromagnetic Fields, by The Czech Connection, by EERC branches earn multimillion-dollar contracts to help maximize labor talent, by Staff Citing
Can genetically engineered bacteria be used to destroy chemicals that contaminate the soil--in effect, digesting toxins and rendering them harmless?
UT's Center for Environmental Biotechnology (CEB) has received a $2-million grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) to find out. If the bacteria prove to have a hardy appetite for the toxins, a new strategy could be added to the menu of options available for managing the nation's hazardous waste.
"This project may mark the first time that the United States releases genetically engineered microorganisms into the environment to destroy chemical pollutants," says CEB Director Gary S. Sayler, who will spearhead the effort.
"Over the past five years, we've conducted similar experiments in the laboratory with good results. Now we'll be able to move from the lab to the natural environment.
"The technology," Sayler adds, "holds great potential. But its true effectiveness can only be determined from field tests."
James Drake, a UT professor of zoology and ecology, and Anthony V. Palumbo, a research scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will join Sayler in this research effort, which is expected to last four years.
A two-acre site on the Oak Ridge Reservation has been chosen for the experiment. The release is scheduled to take place in 1995.
The bacteria that will be injected into the soil carry the scientific name Pseudomonas fluorescens. It's the same genetically engineered bacteria that Sayler and his colleagues have used in lab studies for the past five years.
Pseudomonas fluorescens not only degrade unwanted hydrocarbons but emit bioluminescent light that allows researchers both to assess their pollution-fighting capacity and to trace their migration.
"The light-emitting function, which is engineered into the microorganism, serves double duty," Sayler says. "It helps us measure the intensity of the biodegradation, and it also enables us to keep track of the microorganisms as they migrate through the soil."
The field release will mark another step in DOE's ongoing efforts to devise an environmentally sound, cost-effective strategy for addressing the multibillion-dollar cleanup challenge the agency now faces on nuclear weapons sites across the nation.
"DOE is committed to cleaning up the pollution that has become part of the domestic legacy of the Cold War," says Jay Grimes, DOE Subsurface Science Biotechnology Program Manager. "A large part of the cleanup entails the development of new technologies that will get the job done more efficiently and cheaply. That's why we've invested in this program, and that's why we look forward to some interesting results."
For more information, contact Gary S. Sayler, Center for Environmental Biotechnology, 10515 Research Dr., Suite 100, Knoxville, TN 37932, or call 865-974-8080.
The first Earth Day on April 21, 1970, launched the second wave of environmentalism in the United States. The first wave took place during Theodore Roosevelt's administration in the opening decade of the 20th century.
Not coincidentally, April 21, 1970, also marked the birth of environmental studies as an academic pursuit. In the 20-odd years since, university students have expressed an increasing interest in environmental careers.
The university's ability to nurture this enthusiasm often has been handicapped by the academy's traditional discipline-by- discipline approach to education. Too often, university-based environmental programs have depended on single-discipline coursework, leaving students ill-equipped to deal with the cross-media ecological issues they will encounter after graduation.
Thankfully that's changing, in large measure because students are now demanding a broader, interdisciplinary environmental curriculum. Kelsey Vaughn, a University of Tennessee (UT) graduate student in public administration and former sociology undergraduate, is a case in point.
"Early on, I decided I wanted a career in environmental policy- making," says Vaughn, "but it was difficult to find a program that suited my interests, which focus on the societal, not scientific, factors shaping the environmental agenda."
In the past, Vaughn, a sociology major, might have found herself excluded from science-based university environmental programs. Today, however, Vaughn considers her major an advantage because it allows her to see environmental issues as a reflection of larger societal issues.
UT's new environmental minor, offered to graduate students for the first time this fall, will give Vaughn an opportunity to pursue this interest without compromising the academic standards associated with the in-depth study of a single discipline.
"Many university departments approach environmental policy from within their own disciplines," says Jim Kahn, program developer and associate professor of economics at UT.
"UT's new environmental minor," he suggests, "spans a number of departments for a more integrated approach. At the same time, students are required to pursue their area of major academic interest with the same rigor that students have maintained in the past."
The new graduate minor in environmental policy, in fact, is being offered by several departments, including economics, engineering, geography, political science, and sociology.
"The core of the program is the policy research workshop," says Robert Bohm, a UT economics professor and associate director of UT's Energy, Environment, and Resources Center (EERC). Bohm actively participated in the design of the minor and then helped steer the proposal through the approval process.
In the workshop, which is a required course, students, UT faculty, and scientists and policymakers from other institutions will meet regularly to discuss the multidisciplinary nature of environmental issues and the complex frameworks that often must be devised to address ecological problems.
"Being exposed to different issues and hearing perspectives from a variety of disciplines," says Bohm, "will give students a taste for the environmental policy world that awaits them outside the university, where issues are not so neatly divided by discipline."
Vaughn is also enthusiastic about the program.
"I'm delighted to have the chance to participate in a program that will enable me to pursue my environmental interests within the framework of my sociology major," she says.
UT's environmental minor was created, says Bohm, not only in response to student demands but also as a result of concerns expressed by the business community.
"Business leaders realize the need to hire staff with a broad view of how the world works," says Bohm. "Because data and solutions often cross disciplines, students who understand issues beyond their major fields are better prepared for the job market."
EERC acting director Jack Barkenbus, who served with Bohm on the committee that led to the development of the program, envisions a continued role for EERC as a key player in the core workshop that serves as the centerpiece of the minor.
"Because environmental issues are multidisciplinary," he says "people who have diverse educational backgrounds are better equipped to handle the problems that arise. We hope UT's environmental minor will help train the next generation of environmental professionals."
For more information about UT's environmental minor, contact Jim Kahn, associate professor of economics, 506 Stokely Management Center, Knoxville, TN 37996, or call 865-974-1710.
A typical American family awaken to a new morning. They switch off their electric blankets as a DJ's voice cascades from the clock radio on the nightstand. Once the family members are up, electric toothbrushes, blow dryers, and razors help them prepare for the day ahead.
In the kitchen, mother pops bread in the toaster while father plugs in the coffeemaker. In the den, the daughter sits at a personal computer and puts the finishing touches on her science report while her younger brother looks on. In half an hour, both children will be off to school, where a high-voltage electric transmission line runs along the edge of the playground.
Virtually every family in America lives immersed in a silent, invisible world of electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Such fields, which surround every electric appliance and power line in North America, are created by a 60-hertz alternating current that carries electricity to our homes, offices, and shopping centers.
By some accounts, EMFs are linked to certain cancers, especially among children. And though the association between EMFs and cancer has yet to be validated, it has spawned worldwide debate.
"EMFs have become a hot issue," says Ralph Perhac, a research associate with the University of Tennessee's Energy, Environment and Resources Center (EERC). "Utilities are now paying as much attention to EMFs as they do to global warming and acid rain."
Although the legal and political wrangling over the alleged physical and psychological effects of EMFs has become a prominent issue, little is known about the health effects, if any, of EMFs.
One reason EMFs' alleged health effects are difficult to study is that they require interdisciplinary work. Yet epidemiologists, physicists, biologists, endocrinologists, and electrical engineers all work on different aspects of the problem and seldom have an opportunity to share their findings.
"If you want to examine EMF health effects," says Perhac, "you have to bring all this work together."
Second, EMFs differ from such forces as ionizing radiation or microwaves, which possess enough energy to break molecular bonds or cause biological changes at the cell level.
EMFs, by contrast, do not generate sufficient energy to cause immediate physical effects. As a result, researchers have been unable to gauge the potential effects of these low-level waves; in fact, they have been unable to determine if EMFs have any impact at all.
Some epidemiological studies--most notably a recent report from Sweden--show a weak correlation between living near high-voltage electric lines and a higher incidence of cancer.
"If this association can be replicated in other studies, researchers could then explore the mechanisms behind the adverse molecular response," Perhac says. "So far no one has been able to demonstrate that."
Perhac insists that scientists do not currently have sufficient reliable data on EMFs to assess accurately the health risks these fields may pose.
Indeed, measuring EMFs is no easy task. Scientists must consider not only a field's average and peak intensities, but how long a person is exposed to the field and whether the exposure occurs continuously or in short bursts.
Nevertheless, some citizen activist groups are demanding costly measures, such as moving existing high-voltage power lines away from homes and schools, to mitigate what they perceive to be an imminent danger. In fact, citizen groups in eastern Pennsylvania and northern Michigan have successfully challenged utility industry efforts to expand the reach and capacity of power lines.
These challenges have cost utilities millions of dollars and raised serious questions about whether power companies will be able to meet the rising demand for electricity.
Perhac reports that most scientists agree that people should exercise "prudent avoidance," while researchers continue to evaluate data on EMFs. Simply put, that means taking protective measures that involve little expense.
That way, if EMFs ultimately prove harmless, we have not invested vast amounts of money in protecting ourselves from them.
"Prudent avoidance" could mean sleeping under a comforter instead of an electric blanket; moving electric clocks away from the bedside; relying on manual instead of electric appliances; and making sure your house is properly grounded.
"We're not sure what aspects of EMFs could produce health effects," Perhac says, "so we're not sure what should be reduced or changed.
"When it comes to chemicals or radioactivity," he adds, "it's clear that reducing exposure reduces risk."
But with EMFs, Perhac says, "we can't be sure that reducing exposure will help. In fact, it's possible that persistent lower field strengths may produce health effects that short-term higher field strengths do not."
Because EERC researchers have successfully addressed intricate relationships between science, technology, and public policy in the past, Perhac believes the center is well suited to examine EMF policy questions. The scientific issues may not yet be clear, but politically, EMFs demand attention.
For more information, contact Ralph Perhac, University of Tennessee, EERC, 311 Conference Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, or call 865-974-4251.
Jiri Damborsky, a Czech graduate student on a three-month research visit to UT's Center for Environmental Biotechnology (CEB), finds himself a long way from his Central European home.
While he is often homesick for friends and family, there are a few things about home that Damborsky doesn't miss. Among them are the sometimes spartan conditions he and other scientists often endure in the Czech Republic's universities and research laboratories.
Though the collapse of communism in November 1989 spelled freedom for Damborsky and his fellow countrymen and women, the Velvet Revolution also ushered in a temporary period marked by more restrictive research budgets. The restrictions will likely last while the fledgling government establishes itself.
For Damborsky and other researchers in the Czech and Slovak republics, that has meant an occasional wait for current scientific journals as well as for equipment and supplies.
By contrast, Damborsky says, reference materials and other resources are abundant at UT, and the research laboratory at CEB, an affiliate of the UT's Waste Management Research and Education Institute (WMREI), boasts the latest equipment.
The other thing that Damborsky doesn't miss about his home in the Czech Republic is the pollution problem, which by U.S. standards, has reached crisis proportions.
Most of the republic's power stations are fueled by coal, and much of its municipal waste is burned in incinerators that, in many cases, lack even the most rudimentary pollution-abatement systems.
As a result, a layer of soot coats buildings in Prague and other major cities. Meanwhile, improper disposal of petroleum products and other compounds and inadequate waste-water treatment plants have left a toxic layer as thick as four or five feet floating on top of groundwater systems.
Ironically, it's the latter pollution problem that will ultimately draw Damborsky back home to the Czech Republic and allow him to utilize the research data he is gathering in the United States.
Damborsky's visit is part of an exchange program linking UT researchers with their counterparts at Masaryk University, a scientific institute located in Brno in the Czech Republic.
These researchers-and in Damborsky's case, graduate students-are pooling resources and expertise to support an ongoing Czech environmental project known as Toxic Organic Compounds in the Environment (TOCOEN).
The exchange program was initiated in 1991 under a three-year, $69,000 grant from the U.S.
Information Agency's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The program, which will end this September, was the brainchild of Igor Nabelek, a former Czech national who is now a professor in UT's Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology.
Though not directly involved in ecological issues, Nabelek was aware of both the pressing environmental crisis in his former homeland and the special skills possessed by WMREI in pollution abatement and control.
The exchange program's over-arching goal involves sharing scientific knowledge among faculty at UT and Masaryk University. Its more focused goal, however, involves supporting the TOCOEN project in its efforts to identify toxins in the Czech environment. Eventually, the program may be expanded to address the environmental problems facing other European nations.
To date, the program has brought Damborsky and 18 other scientists and researchers from the Czech and Slovak republics to UT for one to three months to share their expertise with UT researchers. Meanwhile, 11 UT researchers have taken their skills to the former Czechoslovakia.
Among the UT staffers supporting the TOCOEN project are Gary S. Sayler, CEB's director; Terry Schultz, professor in the Department of Animal Sciences and associate director of UT's Environmental Toxicology Program; and Kevin Robinson, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering.
In addition to collaborating with the Czech Republic's leading researchers on pollution abatement, UT staffers have also spent time at the classroom lectern, addressing Czech graduate students on topics as wide ranging as waste-water treatment systems, environmental toxicology, and bio-remediation.
On another front, researchers will use bioengineering techniques to alter the structure of the more resistant compounds to make them more amenable to biodegradation.
Here is where Damborsky expects his research to lead him once he is back home.
Beyond putting the biological bite on pollutants in the Czech environment and boosting the TOCOEN project, the UT-Masaryk University exchange program has provided additional benefits for both institutions.
For one thing, UT researchers have been given a glimpse of extreme environmental problems that far outstrip those occurring in this country.
"We have received a first-hand look at the results of decades of environmental degradation," says Robinson.
Though the exchange program will officially end soon, Robinson and other researchers are hoping to extend the program's benefits by capitalizing on its momentum.
Robinson, for instance, is seeking funding for a program aimed at researching and introducing some low-tech, low-cost environmental restoration techniques to the cash-poor Czech Republic.
"In the Czech Republic, we hope to have the opportunity to apply and assess cost-effective treatment techniques for mitigating pollution," he says. "We then hope to apply what we learn to other developing nations with environmental contamination problems."
For Schultz, the program's pay-off has come in the form of an opportunity to meet-and exchange data-with one of the world's foremost experts in molecular-structure research and toxicology, a Czech scientist named Milon Tichy.
"We had seen each other's work in the literature, but the Iron Curtain had prevented us from meeting," says Schultz. "Through the TOCOEN program, Tichy and I have been able to meet, to visit each other's research labs, and to exchange data face to face."
For Damborsky, the program has provided the opportunity to work at a world-class research laboratory and the chance to collaborate with UT researchers who share his interests. That collaboration has produced a research paper by Damborsky, Schultz, and Sayler.
As for the benefits to the Czech Republic?
Beyond a much-needed infusion of data on pollution remediation, the exchange program has posed another significant benefit and one that has less to do with science and more to do with the cornerstone of the exchange program itself: good old-fashioned cooperation.
While the exchange program has opened communication channels between UT and Masaryk University, Schultz maintains that within the Czech Republic, the competition for research dollars has led most Czech scientists to seal their lips and doggedly protect their own turf. Such protectionism, Schultz says, can stifle even the best-intentioned research efforts.
"Perhaps the most significant bit of information we've imparted to our Czech counterparts is the value of an interdisciplinary, or intercollegiate, approach to problem solving," he says.
"It was instructive for them to see me, from toxicology, locking arms with Gary, from microbiology, and Kevin from engineering," Schultz says. "I think they all recognized, as we have, that the value of our collaboration was much greater than the sum of our individual contributions."
For more information, about the Czech exchange program contact Terry W. Schultz, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tennessee, P.O. Box 1071, Knoxville, TN 37901, or call 865-974-5817.
Don Alvic, senior associate director of the Pellissippi Research Institute, a branch of the University of Tennessee's (UT) Energy, Environment, and Resources Center (EERC) and Transportation Center, recognizes that the shortest distance between two points isn't always a straight line.
While Alvic is willing to accept the notion that routes in the business world often meander from point to point, he is determined to see that the paperwork leaving his office travels more directly and expeditiously.
Alvic's institute-which consists of personnel from UT's EERC and Transportation Center-serves as a vital link between the university and Martin Marietta Energy Systems Inc., which manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
Typically, Alvic's group takes on tasks including, among other things, preparation of environmental impact statements, transportation planning strategies, and economic analyses. At any given time, Alvic's group may be involved in as many as 50 cooperative tasks with the Energy Division of ORNL.
In the past, says Alvic, 50 tasks meant 50 separate contracts, and Alvic, the principle investigator on many of these old contracts, found himself devoting much of his time to negotiating details and drafting agreements.
Alvic's counterpart at ORNL's Energy Division, Bob Honea, also found himself buried in paper as a result of all the contractual work being performed by Alvic's group.
"Back in 1988, Bob told me he was tired of running all these separate contracts," says Alvic. "He asked me if I thought UT could handle it if we were to roll all these individual contracts into one large task-order contract."
The idea appealed to Alvic, who approached UT's comptroller's office.
After some negotiation, the comptroller's office voiced its approval, and soon all the players began working out the details of this unique contractual agreement.
By 1990, the contract-extending over four years and totaling $16 million-was in place.
To facilitate the new arrangement, Alvic and his staff wrote a computer program that itemizes the contractual work being provided down to, as Alvic describes it, "the paper-clip level."
Under terms of the contract, UT sends Martin Marietta's purchasing department one monthly invoice, on which Alvic's staff have itemized expenses for all the tasks performed for that month. Task managers at ORNL receive an itemized listing of all costs and services that pertain to their specific projects. Not only does the contract streamline the invoicing and payment process; it also shortens the time it takes for Alvic to assign his staff to tasks once he has received a request for work from ORNL.
"We can now get a task initiated within a day or two of receiving a request," says Alvic. "In the past, writing separate contracts could have taken anywhere from four weeks on up."
Though Alvic's original contract with Martin Marietta expired this year, he successfully negotiated and signed a second five-year contract, which is scheduled to begin effective September 1, 1994.
Under the new contract, Alvic's Pellissippi Research Institute
will provide services and supplies totaling $20 million over the
five-year period.
Sheila Webster, senior associate director of The University of Tennessee's (UT) Energy, Environment, and Resources Center, recently secured a multiyear, multimillion-dollar contract that will strengthen ties between her Information Systems Research program and Martin Marietta Energy Systems Inc.
Through the Information Systems Research program, Webster taps UT talent for projects involving the collection, analysis, and transfer of information for Martin Marietta's Data Systems Research and Development Division.
In February, Webster and her counterparts at Martin Marietta agreed to the terms of a five-year, $9-million contract that will incorporate-under one umbrella-tasks that in the past involved dozens of separate contracts.
Webster feels that the contract's greatest contribution involves enhanced cooperation between Martin Marietta and the university. Through this agreement, for instance, Webster can assign UT staff and students to joint UT-Martin Marietta projects more efficiently.
"Beyond the immediate reduction in paperwork," says Webster, "what I value most about this agreement is its ability to facilitate further cooperation.
"That cooperation," adds Webster, "will enable UT students to continue to gain on-the-job experience on collaborative projects."
At the same time, it will allow UT's staff to remain involved in research that extends beyond the scope of many university projects and give Martin Marietta added access to UT's large and varied talent pool.
"In short," says Webster, "this agreement stands to benefit everyone involved."
Solid Solutions, a 30-minute video co-sponsored by EERC and TVA's Center for Rural Waste Management, will be distributed to all 346 public stations across the United States through a cooperative agreement between the Southern Educational Communication Association and Pacific Mountain Network. Program distribution will take place the week of September 25.
Commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service Doris Meissner's forthcoming article in Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy will be reprinted in a Congressional Research Service-edited monograph to be distributed to high-school debating societies throughout the United States.
Rosalyn McKeown-Ice, "Environmental Education: A Geographical Perspective," Journal of Geography (Jan./Feb. 1994).
Catherine A. Wilt and David L. Feldman, "States' Roles in Reducing Global Warming: Achieving International Goals," World Resource Review (Fall 1994).
Mary English participated in the U.S. Department of Energy's "Future Use Workshop" in Cincinnati, Ohio, on July 19-20, 1994.
David Brill served as lead sessions editor for a publication titled From Rio to the Capitols: State Strategies for Sustainable Development. The volume's sessions include 195 speeches and case studies presented during a four-day conference on sustainable development hosted by the state of Kentucky in May 1993.